Arlington National Cemetary: After the Flag

12/31/2013

Yesterday when I was looking for something in the closet in the guest room I opened a large plastic file box and found a treasure trove of memories. There are letters between Jim and me, souvenirs from our honeymoon and this precious date-book.

January to December 1955.

I remembered picking it up from a basket of "freebies" on the counter in the Manhattan Drug Store across the street from the Emergency Room entrance at Johns Hopkins Hospital in December 1954. In those days a calendar of the coming year was a familiar give-away.

Free was important to me and as I look through these months and see how often I was babysitting I am reminded of how grateful I was for those casual jobs. And I recognize the names - families of residents and interns - the gifted guys in the white suits I was so in awe of when I was working on the wards.

There is nothing like an old calendar to bring memories flooding back. As I read through these pages I love watching the progression of the relationship between Jim and me. Even though the details are not noted I remember them. The excitement and innocence of our courtship time, the evenings of meeting Jim in the Doctors Cafeteria in the hospital after 10 PM when he would take a break from "the books" in a study room somewhere in the backrooms of the small libraries throughout the hospital for an hour with me. A few names of casual dates with Jim's classmates appear until he gave me his fraternity pin on May 16 th -

He proposed on July 9th.

Those were sweet days. I remember pretty accurately how all this happened - but I am grateful to see it in writing. Confirming my memories.

Lovely and touching to find this on our Anniversary, Yes, it was all real. Not a dream. We were young and in love. And looking forward to spending our lives together.

And we did!

To celebrate and acknowledge today - - our 58th wedding anniversary - my family took me out for dinner.
When I told them about finding this calendar they were interested in hearing a few stories about those days - making me promise to take care of it. "We want to have it, Mom." Well, they can have it - but not yet,

I still have work to do with all these "finds". Re-reading all the letters - many from Jim to me and me to him. As well as quite a collection of other letters - from my parents and grand-parents writing to a young girl who has just moved 12 hours away from home for school and then marries. Puts me in several other contexts - - rich in the stuff of stories. Also some interesting family papers which document who we have been and what we have done.

Yes, stories to tell - and another goal for my 2014 list -
Organize, scan and copy - the "finds" in the box.
Make an album.

Jim had an impulse for recording family history. I feel him nudging me.
Keep the history.
Tell the story.

12/29/2013

December 30 - would be Jim and my 58th wedding anniversary. I will begin the day at a Mass for Jim.

How could I have known when I arrived at the historic Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD in 1954 that this was the beginning of the rest of my life?

Jim Schoettler, a second year medical student from California, and I, a freshman nursing student from North Carolina, met on a blind date the second month I was in Baltimore. But he had caught my eye before then when I spotted him at Mass on Sundays.

It was not long after that first date that we knew we had found a special connection between us -

We were married 14 months later on December 30, 1955.

We came to Washington, DC for our honeymoon never dreaming we would settle here ten years later.

At this anniversary I feel such gratitude for the 21,805 days we had together.

Those days were charged with the energies of life - happiness, our share of sadness, anger and joy, and most of all the sweetness of love.

12/27/2013

A tree from a Christmas "Past".
For days I have been reliving many of the 57 Christmas holidays Jim and I shared. They carried sweet memories and I have cried "buckets."

Last year I fled to California for Christmas to escape having my first Christmas after he died here at home. I learned that you can't escape the feelings but distance does dull them down a bit.

This year I stayed at home. Home is the house Jim and I bought 43 years ago. It is filled with days, hours and minutes that we shared. I dodged having a big tree and opening all the boxes of ornaments. We carefully wrapped and saved our ornaments - our Christmas Tree has been a family album and we shared the tree-trimming giving time to remembering as we unwrapped each item. Always a special evening - with our kids or on our own.

I was okay without a tree but my son surprised me by walking on with a 4' artificial tree with the lights embedded. I still left the old ornaments downstairs. I trimmed it with small silvery "diet coke flip-up openers" and small red artificial apples. Actually it looked quite nice. And, Jimmy was right, I was glad to have it.

The one in the house most over-joyed to have the tree has been my kitten - turned cat. The first two days I guarded the tree because she was determined to have those red apples. They looked just like balls to her. Finally I removed the cat to the downstairs. For several days it was a power- struggle between me and the cat .

Until, I took a nap Christmas evening and the cat had a clear run at this green thing she perceived as a giant cat-toy. A loud BAM startled me awake.

CAT WINS!!!!!

So today I am picking up the pieces and putting them away.

I may be using them again next year.

Just like I am picking up the pieces of my life as I move toward a new year - 2014.

There are still some mighty challenges -
December 30 - our Wedding Anniversary - is just 4 days away - This would be our 58th Anniversary,

12/24/2013

The blog that I am re-posting today was written on Christmas Eve, 2004 at our daughter Robin's house in Lafayette, CA. I have chosen to repeat it because it is about the stories we told at dinner that night. One particular story our family had held in their hearts for 30 years surfaced and I hope will continue to live through our children and grandchildren.

12.24.2004

Around the dinner table at Robin's tonight, everyone was taking a turn telling something about a Christmas Past.

Brad
talked of a memorable Illinois Christmas at his grandparents house.
Jamie, Robin and Brad's oldest, begged the question, saying that maybe this
year might be the one he would talk about later.

When it was our daughter Karen's turn she laughed."Ofcourse I remember the year I got all the stuff."She paused and then added," but there is the Christmas Eve we were out here, in Madera, at Grandma's and we went to Yosemite."

Jim and Robin and I nodded. "Oh, yes."

This is not our first California Christmas.

My
husband Jim is a California native. He went to medical school on the East
Coast and ended up staying out there. Jim's father died in March 1974.

We
came back to California with our three kids for Christmas that year so
that all the family would be together. It was a wonderful reunion of
aunts, uncles, and cousins as those anniversaries often are.

Christmas
Eve dawned. All the resident families had chores to do and fixings to
complete for the holiday. We were at loose ends and in some ways in the
way.

Jim suggested we take our kids for their introduction to Yosemite - only a 90 minute drive away.

As
we climbed toward the mountains we met snow. There were snow capped
peaks ahead as we drove through lightly dusted hills and valleys.

We
stopped for breakfast at a lodge near the entrance to Yosemite Park.
The dining room had a cathedral ceiling and the large windows framed
breathtaking views of the snow capped mountain peaks.

A floor to
ceiling grey stone fireplace dominated one end of the room. Standing
near-by was a 20 foot evergreen tree. The top just missed the rough hewn
ceiling rafters. The room was perfumed with a mixture of spruce and
wood smoke. The thick farm pancakes and maple syrup were as perfect as
the setting.

We entered Yosemite Park through a tunnel. As we emerged the monumental El Capitan stood before us on the left.

Ahead on the right we saw a bright white streak against a sheer rock face whereBridal Veil Falls was frozen solid.We were all so awed that we spoke in the same hushed voices we use in church.

The air was cold and crisp and pure. The skies overhead were bright blue with an occasional white cloud floating by.

Ours
was the only car at the vista point. And that was how it continued all
day. We saw no more than three cars all day. We owned the park.

Deer grazed in snow covered clearings. When we walked toward a creek we heard the rushing water before we sawit
tumbling over the rocks. At every twist in the road there was a new
view of the white capped Sierra peaks that surround Yosemite Valley. Half-dome dominates and is my favorite sight.

That was thirty years ago today - but I can see it as clearly as if it were yesterday.

How could we have known that we were capturing a timeless moment that would live for each of us - -

Today I think of it as the day we spent in the Presence of God -

and I am so grateful we shared it as a family.

Back to Christmas 2013

Christmas Eve 1974 was not the first time I had been to Yosemite with Jim.

Jim was raised with those mountains visible in the distance and he loved them. When we were in his hometown, Madera, together for the first time in 1958 he was determined that he would take me to see"real mountains" up close. I was hardly prepared for my first glimpse of the majesty of the Sierras or of Yosemite National Park.

Jim borrowed a car. We took two year old Jimmy, Mary, Jim's youngest sister and her friend and struck out. As we climbed toward the mountains on the narrow roads of those days I was nervous - - soon downright scared. Jim reassured me and the teen-agers, Mary and her friend, so accustomed to trips up these roads, thought I was ridiculous and they laughed and teased me. They still laugh about it.

When we emerged from the entrance tunnel and El Capitan loomed ahead I caught my breath. Jim was delighted by my amazement. This was indeed "the real mountains." I have never forgotten that first sight of their majestry.

The Christmas Eve we took our kids up to Yosemite in 1974 Jim was excited to introduce them to the mountains he had loved since he was a child. It was a meaningful sharing.

The night at Robin's when they retold the story so pleased Jim because he knew he had given them the gift he hoped to - the kind of lasting gift every parent hopes to give their children.

12/23/2013

Continuing the review of blogs I have written about celebrating Christmas in our family.

Jim loved Christmas. He was raised in a large family in California surrounded by extended families in the area so he loved to celebrate - even when we were living so far from either family.

I, on the other hand, never really liked Christmas. Some of my childhood holidays are spiced with love and laughter and I prize those memories but many other are best forgotten. My father was an alcoholic and the Christmas Holidays triggered unhappy memories for him and tension and unhappiness for the rest of us.
Jim's love of the Season went a long way to teach me that Christmas is a time to be happy.

That's one reason I like to look back on our Christmas-es together

Blog From December 2008

Christmas 1957682 Argyle Road, Brooklyn New York.We
moved to Brooklyn in July 1957 when Jim graduated from medical school
and was assigned to Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn for his
internship.

Christmas 1957

1957 was our first Christmas on-our-own.
Jim and I were married December 30, 1955 and Jim came to Charlotte for
that Christmas with my family. The next year Jimmy was one month old and
we went to Charlotte for the holidays and for Jimmy's Baptism at
Assumption Catholic Church, where Jim and I were married the year
before.

We still have and prize a few of the fragile
glass ornaments that we bought at Bargaintown USA - one of the pioneer
warehouse-type operations in Brooklyn. The balls are decorated with
silver glitter.

Christmas Ornament, circa 1957, purchased from Bargain Town USA,

Brooklyn, NY

What was bright and shiny for years is now darklytarnished by 50 years of being wrapped and un-wrapped with newspaper scraps.In those days an intern's salary was laughable so we planned a very spare Christmas.

The
single interns took the duty on Christmas so the married guys could
spend the day with their families. It was a swap. Married guys worked
New Years Eve. I was grateful and Jim would have hated missing being
there for Jimmy's first Santa.Santa brought
Jimmy the noisy push toy he is holding and a classic small wagon of
colored wooden blocks. By the time he had opened all the gifts for him
sent from Califoria and North Carolina he was over-whelmed. Stopping
only long enough to take a bite of the candy he found in his stocking.
He was a happy kid, laughing and grinning all day.We
went to mid-morning Mass at St. Rose of Lima Church about a mile away
and then drove over to the hospital for a sumptious traditional dinner
which we could not have afforded at home and I had no clue how to cook.

Jim
says he thinks we drove to Manhattan after eating, parked the car, took
out the stroller for Jimmy and walked down Fifth Avenue to see the
animated windows at Saks and then take in the monumental tree at Rockefeller Center.

Back to 2013

Storytelling has taught me to watch for the ways life circles back on itself when I work on my personal stories.

Jim and I left Brooklyn in 1958 and did not live in New York again. However after we moved to Washington, DC area in 1964 we went back frequently and usually at Christmas.

In the late 1960s Jim entered training as a Psychoanalyist at the Washington Psychoanalytic School and every December Candidates attended the American Psychoanalytic Society Meeting in New York City at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. That meeting was always scheduled the weekend before Christmas - not convenient true, but that was a magic time to be in New York. And at the Waldorf - Astoria Hotel with all its lavish Christmas Decorations. On Park Avenue we were a quick walk from St Patrick's Cathedral, Saks Fifth Avenue and Rockefeller Center.
Not to mention access to all the wonderful museums in NYC.

Several Christmases in the 1970s we took Jimmy and Karen and Robin with us so that we could all share the magic - visit the Metropolitan Museum, see a few plays and take in all the sights of Manhattan.

Then one Christmas in the 1990s all our East Coast family which now included our grand-daughters
took the train and spent a Christmas week-end at the Waldorf -Astoria Hotel where we enjoyed the magic of New York City: Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, Macy's Santa Village and Santa Claus.

I am so grateful it is all part of our family's Christmas stories. Just writing this down prompts me to remember more and more and know that I will be looking for pictrures later today to see what stories the others remember when we sit down for supper Christmas Eve.

Brierly Road Christmas

Telling the stories of our family stories of Christmas

is the best way to remember and honor Jim and celebrate all he was to us.

12/22/2013

Last year, the first Christmas without Jim, I escaped to California for the Holidays. I visited with Jim's family and his best friend Dick. And all of our family was together - visiting San Francisco, Avila beach and Jim's hometown, Madera, CA.

This year I stayed home. I am facing my first Christmas at home without Jim - head on. I am muddling through.

But I have not unpacked the 57 year collection of boxes of Christmas decorations and ornaments in the basement.

Even without them memories are everywhere - a song, a Christmas movie, you know how that is. And I am glad. In our 58 years together Jim and I shared 58 Christmases.

Christmas is a large part of our story together - from our Christmas wedding to a memorable family holiday trip to Germany - that in the 10 years of writing this blog I have savored Christmas on it many times.

For the next couple of days I want to recapture our story through those posts.

From December 2007

O Tannenbaum

Jimmy Schoettler, 1957, Brooklyn, New York

Christmas Day Jim and I will be flying to California. We will have Christmas Eve with our near-by family and Christmas Dinner with our daughter and her family near San Francisco. Its as close to bi-locating as we get.
So we did not bring down the boxes from the attic and unpack the ornaments that are carefully wrapped in crumbling vintage newspaper scraps along with fresher, whiter more recent additions.
Jim and I have always favored a big tree - since our first Christmas together when we had nothing to put on it . This was taken our third Christmas. We were living in Brooklyn where Jim was interning at Kings County Hospital. Jimmy was just a year old.

Because Jim and I lived away from either family of origin the tree took on a special meaning for us. As we added ornaments we took great care to keep them year-to- year.
Over the years the kids added homemade ornaments. We bought trinkets when we traveled that became a part of the Christmas Tree dress-up.Every year the decorating ritual added more stories and the tree became a family album.

In 2005 to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary my art show ABOUT TIME at Gallery 10 was all about our family. And, Jim worked with me to create it. People were not surprised. Albums and personal content have been a presence in my art work since the 1970s.
Including the Christmas Tree was a natural - a perfect fit - an album - a living art work. Family art.
The Christmas Tree is a special anonymous art work that families make together and treasure.

Christmas Tree Album, 2005, ABOUT TIME

We installed the tree - family-style - in the smaller front room of the gallery. Jim reduced the tree to half a tree so that it fit flat on the wall like a relief - to set it up as an art piece. Karen and Monica and I strung the lights and added the ornaments. (click for a larger view - to see the memory pieces)

Another part of the show was a collage album - made as an abacus.

About Time, Abacus Album, collage construction created by Jim and Ellouise Schoettler

Remember - About Time.

Jim made the abacus and I constructed the digital photo cubes and collaged them.

Jim and his crew, Jimmy, Karen and Monica installed the abacus .

The photos spanned our fifty years together and included kids, grandkids, family, friends, art pieces and special events - with collage elements to embellish and transform.

Jim and I have another of those anniversaries coming up - next week, December 30.
Another milestone - 52 years.

Dick, who was Jim's Best Man, lives near Robin near San Francisco. We will have lunch together on the 30th - a very nice reunion.

2013 - Back to today.

Dick Bloomer (L) and Jim Schoettler (R) - Good Friends

Although this picture of Dick and Jim was taken in 2011 - I know we met at Millie's in Lafayette for breakfast that year - because we always met there when we came to the area.

A gift for today - Dick called me for Christmas the other day and we talked and laughed - of cabbages and kings - and Jim. The kind of conversation you can have with an old friend.

He and Jim met at Madera High School and were room-mates in college - at Fresno State Univ -(now Univ of CA-Fresno). Dick was a favorite in Jim's family - always welcome for supper. And, he still is. He is my connection to those early days and stories.
I met him when he came to MD in the Army when Jim was at Hopkins in Medical School.

Fortunately he was stationed in the South when we got married so that he could stand with Jim at our wedding. That's a long-time friend.

12/19/2013

When my father returned from World War II my family was living in a two bedroom apartment in Charlotte, NC and my two younger sisters and I had to share a bedroom. It was crowded. At 11 - 13 I yearned for privacy in a room of my own. When I finally got that prize I also found myself in trouble. Trouble that lasted until Christmas 1949.

This story has been told in my family for more than sixty years. It is testimony to my father's quirky sense of humor.

12/16/2013

More than a dozen years ago Jim and I bought into a TimeShare in Williamsburg and since then have spent time there during different seasons. Christmas is my favorite time to visit Williamsburg. The historic town is especially picturesque when there is a dusting of snow to soften all the edges and blur time.

In 2005 all our family gathered in Williamsburg for ten days to celebrate Christmas and our 50th Wedding Anniversary. It was a special time in a special place. Many sweet memories -

Memories, as sweet as they are, have a slightly bittersweet edge for me with out Jim. I am learning to face into them so that I do not lose the sweetness because I am afraid of the sharp prick of grief. I have realized that cost is too high.

I will schedule another visit to Williamsburg so that I can embrace that special place and the lovely memories it holds for me.

I particularly love the wreaths made from fresh materials that decorate the windows and doors in the historic district. They are sweetly fragrant and often surprising. Starting today I will post pictures from my collection of wreath photos.

There is a connection between the photos of the wreaths and the memories of lovely moments in Williamsburg - they perserve something prescious and I can revisit them forever.

12/11/2013

Thirty
years ago when I began hunting up my family history genealogy I learned
that there was no passing down just the begats - you have to have the
stories or the flesh will not go back on the bones. And often times, the
stories you want are already buried and you can't get to them. The sad
truth is that one death can close a family library of stories.

I
realized I had to switch my tactics and create stories to go with the
names and dates I had collected or they would rot in a box. I was
desperate to tell the stories so I became a storyteller.

Now,
you don't have to go that far unless you have a yearning for standing in
front of the room. But it is important to tell your family about you
and your life and how you got to be who you are. Because who you are is
part of who the younger ones in your family are and will be.

When
I hit rough spots I am glad I have pieced together the stories of the
women in my family because they are all survivors. They survived
heartache, financial troubles, loss of children and husbands - young and
old. One husband was shot in a senseless robbery and his wife went on
to raise six children in a time where there were no pensions or
workman's comp - just hard work. I knew this valiant woman, my great
aunt, who always stood tall and never lost her faith as she faced into
the wind.

And then there are the stories shared around the
table, mixed with laughter and love and memories of those who have gone.
As well as telling of how things were 10, 20. 30 or more years ago so
that our children today will understand us better when we wonder about
technologies and lament the demise of the fountain pen or the silence of
touch screens as we miss the clatter of typewriters which proved you
were working.

Holidays are here. Families are gathering. This is a
great time to tell some stories about you and your family. Our family
is the most precious audience we have.

12/09/2013

Gathering together Christmas memories.
What about you -- are you remembering your stories as you prepare for this holiday.

Christmas 1946

Sister Mary John chose me and it gave my mother a headache.

When I was in the Fifth Grade at O'Donoghue School in Charlotte, NC my fifth grade teacher chose me to be the "Mary" in the Christmas tableau after all the carols were sung by the entire school. This meant that my mother had to figure out and make me a costume to wear. But you could count on Mama. She was resourceful - - - she worked it out - - and that's how I ended up wearing Aunt Ida's shroud.

12/06/2013

Yesterday I was part of the line-up of speakers for TEDxBethesda. It was an exciting and energizing day – I learned a lot – and
being there brought me back to my roots - - while I touched today first hand.

My back story:in the
1970s I came of age professionally through involvement in the women’s
organizations and activist activities of the Women’s Movement, particularly
those involving women artists.I worked
with amazing women and shared ideas and dreams for our futures professionally
and personally at the Washington Women’s Arts Center, Women’s Caucus for Art,
the Coalition of Women Artists and across the country when I worked on the
national campaign to pass the Equal Rights Amendment.When I say worked I mean just that from sweeping up and hanging art shows to plotting and planning organizations and political
strategies. I rubbed elbows with the well known to the famous of those
days – even to the White House and Hollywood. It was a heady time for a girl
from North Carolina, a mom and a wife, and a fledgling artist. Yesterday I had
a chance to water those roots by being there.I felt again the energy of those those exciting days.

The event was held at Imagination Stage, an incredible
children’s theater in Bethesda, MD, founded by Bonnie Fogel who opened the
event with words of welcome. When I first met Bonnie this theater was her dream – a dream she brought to reality by perseverance, hard
work, determination and her own imagination.I was proud for her and of her for what she has accomplished and
I appreciate the gift she gives to the families in our area.

Maryland Senator Jennie Forehand, the Honorary Chair of the
event, was sitting in the front row, once more lending her significant clout
and her heart-felt support to women.Jennie and I go back a long way – beginning in the second grade at the
Elizabeth School in Charlotte, NC.Nobody that knew her then and through High School is surprised that she
has spent more than 35 years in the Maryland Legislature – where she has “done”
some extraordinary good. Her list of accomplishments is long– her latest awards from organizations have
been for her work on “human trafficking.” I remember when she was running in her initial election getting her instructions on how to run a successful campaign from one
of the first editions of the hand-book for women candidates developed by the
Women’s Campaign Fund.

The applause was loud and sustained for organizer, Jane O. Smith, who organized this event as a
“give back” and to celebrate reaching her five-year survival mark from her breast cancer.

Five years ago Josephine Withers and I were presenting a
workshop at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC.Josephine, after a successful career as an
academic had recently retired as Professor of Art History at the University of Maryland
and had trained as a Life Coach.I was a
full time professional storyteller.Josephine
and I had history – from the Women’s Artists’ Movement – we had worked together
before. We decided to try something new -– a workshop on using
story to re-describe your life and to chart your goals - and the Women’s Art Museum agreed to
present it.

Could not resist this picture from a current exhibition

Jane came to our weekend workshop two weeks after her
cancer surgery.She told the audience that the workshop
helped her to begin a new journey, the journey which led to her dream for this event.

Jane now has a career as a life coach among other things. I can imagine that a new title will be TEDx Producer. She brought her dream to life yesterday after months of hard
work, creative networking, determination, positive thinking and dreaming.
Her enthusiasm recruited folks like the well-known Internet guru Sam Horn and
long-time CNN international correspondent Jill Dougherty and many others to
step up and help her accomplish this dream. Yesterday the theater was full,
about 125 people, primarily women.

The theater was comfortably intimate and perfect for this kind of
event.The excitement began in the lobby
where tables were set up for coffee for the wait before the theater doors
opened and- for networking.Mingling beforehand I met some interesting
and vibrant women. One I spoke to had come from Alabama to check out the event as
there is thought down there of organizing a committee to produce a TEDX. I met another intriguing
woman who tells stories of her family through her needlework. She was the first of a half-dozen women I invited to be a guest on my TV show, Stories in Focus, so more people can hear their stories.

I felt the same energy and connection I used to feel at
gatherings of women in the arts in the 1970s. It was like slipping back into a familiar and
very warm coat.Being there was was a
gift to me.

And, I knew that I had brought the right story to open my
presentation – TELL YOUR STORY.

20 years ago a 1930s photograph album fell off a truck in
front of me on a narrow road. I chased the truck to tell them what they had
lost and the driver said,

“A 93 year old woman just died. Nobody wants her stuff. I am
taking it to the DUMP.”

Well, I wanted it - so
I turned around and rescued it.There
are no names in it. The woman is a mystery – she has no story.

Oddly, the album now has a story – because I have told its story
from coast to coast for 20 years. This woman without a story nudges people to tell their stories.

There is more to my talk – all about story - of course
– but my daughter Robin was right when
she said, “Tell the Album Story, Mom and take the album with you. “

And my daughter Karen added,

“ talk about that woman. ”

I did-and they were right.

A woman came up to me at the break- “ We recently buried my father at
Arlington.And then cleared out their
house – but I want to tell you – we kept all the albums.”

Thank you Jane Smith for inviting me to be a part of your
dream yesterday.